Search This Blog

Pages

Picture Book Month: Recent Releases

November is picture book month, and even though I have older kids now, we still read picture books. My 7 year old is particularly fond of them. What I've learned as they've gotten older is that there are picture books for kids of all ages, from simple stories meant to entertain toddlers to more complex and educational books for older kids.

We've recently read four picture books that were released this Fall, and I just had to share them.

First up is a picture book that doesn't actually have any pictures! The Book with No Pictures
by B.J. Novak is a fabulous book that is quickly becoming popular. It is meant to be read aloud by an adult to a child, but my daughter has been reading it aloud to everyone who will listen. The premise is that the reader has to read whatever is written on the page, even if it's gibberish. It's quite funny and holds everyone's interest, despite the lack of pictures.

Another one that would make a great read-aloud is My Grandfather's Coat
retold by Jim Aylesworth based on the Yiddish folksong "I Had a Little Overcoat." It's a simple story that flows like a folksong with rhyme and repetition. It tells the story of a man who made a coat for himself for his wedding, and as the years passed by and it frayed, "he snipped, and he clipped, and he stitched, and he sewed" to turn it into something else. Over and over he transforms this cloth into something new, with nothing going to waste.

The next two are examples of new picture books that would appeal to older children.

Mr. Ferris and His Wheel
by Kathryn Gibbs Davis is about the invention of the Ferris wheel during the Chicago World's Fair in 1893. Readers learn what the World's Fair was and how George Ferris came up with a design that was meant to outshine the Eiffel Tower from the previous World's Fair. It shares how the wheel was created and the excitement of the first ride. I particularly enjoyed this one because I got a taste of this story in The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson.

Shooting at the Stars: The Christmas Truce of 1914
by John Hendrix a much deeper story about World War I. This is definitely for older kids. It's about a young English soldier in the trenches during the first Christmas of the war, in 1914. That year, the German and British soldiers stopped fighting and celebrated Christmas together. The book has a lot of detail at the beginning and the end about the war as a whole, too. But the story itself is focused on that one special day.

In 2011, we participated in a daily picture book challenge in which we read and reviewed picture books for every day of the month. Here are links to our reviews from that year. The books are older, but there are many good ones in these lists.

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This is the end of Banned Books Week and unfortunately, I haven't had a lot of time to write about banned books this year. But I did want to include at least one post about it, so today I wanted to share one of the book series that it seems most people are surprised to find on the list: Junie B. Jones by Barbara Park.

According to Wikipedia:
The Junie B. Jones series came in at #71 on the American Library Association's list of the Top 100 Banned or Challenged Books from 2000-2009. Reasons cited are poor social values taught by the books and Junie B. Jones not being considered a good role model due to her mouthiness and bad spelling/grammar.
This is an interesting example of a banned book. Many times there are serious, controversial topics featured in books that are challenged. Things like homosexuality, drugs, vulgar language, etc. You can actually understand why people may not want their children to read those books, and why they may challenge their inclusion in school libra…

Victoria has been put down since the day she was born. First by her parents who were disappointed that she survived while her twin brother died. Then by her verbally abusive husband and his low-life friends. But soon an intriguing artist named Elliott arrives in town and starts encouraging Victoria to follow her dream of opening her own dance studio. She also begins to receive phone calls from a mysterious someone who gets her to open up about her past and face her true feelings.

In No Story to Tell, KJ Steele has captured the small-town atmosphere and brought these characters to life. From the victimized Victoria, to her drunk and obnoxious husband Bobby and his drunk and obnoxious friends, to all the side characters who you'd expect to encounter in a town like this ~ all are so realistic in both their actions and their voices. She has written a compelling story of an abused woman who thinks she is trapped in this loveless, miserable existence. But then she finds a spark of hope…

Have you ever felt like someone was watching you? You will after reading Clare Mackintosh's latest release I See You. Told from the perspectives of two women, one who appears to be targeted by a criminal and the other who is the police officer working the case, this psychological thriller will have you looking over your own shoulder by the end.

Zoe is a typical working mother who takes the Underground through London to her office every day. Like most commuters, she has a routine that she follows every day, leaving home at the same time, sitting in the same train car, taking the same route to work from the station. It's habit. But she starts to realize this may not be a good idea after seeing her own photo in an advertisement in the newspaper. Another woman who appears in the advertisement is murdered and Zoe starts to ge…